Click here to access the Tanksim website
SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

BUYING GAMES, BOOKS, ELECTRONICS, and STUFF
THROUGH THIS LINK SUPPORTS SUBSIM, THANKS!

The Web's #1 BBS for all submarine and naval simulations!

Go Back   SUBSIM Radio Room Forums > General > Tanksim.com

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-29-09, 07:09 PM   #1
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Finland
Posts: 25,004
Downloads: 32
Uploads: 0


Default Memoirs of a Tiger commander

Found this thread from the WWIIOL forums today and though you might be interested to read the cool info it has.

To cut it short, a guy working in a model shop in the US had a customer one day who was looking for an Tiger model. That customer was no one else but Major Gerd Lindemann. So, with the permission from the original poster (Tzulscha), I'll start pumping out any bits I find from the OP's conversation with the Major.

Okie, here we go.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I run a hobby shop here in Michigan and an older gentleman wandered in today looking for a model of a Tiger I. He didn't want to build a kit but was very interested in the 1/16th Tiger I by Tamiya (until I showed him the price tag). After chatting with him a bit I asked what he knew about Tigers and he announced that he had been in command of the 2 companies of Tigers that had fought at Kasserine pass! His name is (Maj) Gerd Lindemann, which sounded very familiar. I asked and he said "Oh you've probably heard of my uncle, Kapitan zur Zee Lindemann, Captain of the Bismarck." Long story short, he told a couple of stories and answered some questions and commissioned me to build a model of his Tiger I ausf E for his mantel. He said he would bring in some photos for reference and told me that if I wanted to talk history I should drop by.
He is currently associated with a Military museum project we have going out at our Airport and lives locally. He seems very freindly and more than willing to talk about the war. (Possibly because he was captured with Schwere Panzerabteilung 501 on May 12 1943, so he missed Russia and all the associated horrors of the Ostfront.)

Interestingly, he said that their Tigers came from the factory not in panzer grey (which is what I expected), and not in Afrika Mustard , but rather in a slightly darker brown (I have the RAL number somewhere...) over which he had his crews spray a dark grey blotch pattern.

The man under the small arrow is Maj Lindemann. The Officer in the back with the Binocs is Dr. Franz, Rommels interpreter, and I'm sure you will all recognize the figure in the forground.


Cabbage: Maj Lindemann said that the steering in the tiger worked 2 ways: the steering wheel was normally used and if the tank was shifted into neutral withe the motor running it could be turned in a complete circle within it's own lenght by running one track forward and the other reversed. He said that while this worked just fine in sand, on hard ground it had a tendency to break tracks and orders were not to do it. Also the steering was not so sensitive that by just bumping it you wouldnt move the tank. The second method of steering the tank was by 2 levers controlling differential braking, but it was a pain in the *** and not normally used. Acceleration vs the Pz 3 and 4 was awful, the Tiger was really pushing the limits of its drive component and unless care was taken it was pretty easy to tear up the final drive. I understand Tiger crews got pretty good at pulling 'em apart for repair.

Imsneaky: I chatted with him again at work for about an hour and he said that Rommel seemed to be a nice enough fellow, he said he thought at the time that Rommel knew what he was doing and would take care of them.
THe biggest problem was supplies, Maj Lindemann mentioned spending a week with all his vehicles out in the middle of nowhere for a week simply because they had no fuel to move. They spent the time fixing the tanks.

I asked him what he thought of the Tiger and he said "It was my iinsurance policy." He talked about a battle he came through against the Americans, he said that the shermans and Grant/Lees had weak running gear, so if they could, they would shoot the suspension out and the crew would bail and run like hell. He said that after the fight that the crew was shaking when they climbed out. He counted 30 hits on his tank from 75mm on down. No major damage.......... Insurance policy indeed.....

I also asked about the Opel Blitz and the Bedford, because he had said that wherever they went they had to have trucks for fuel, supplies etc. etc. In the desert, you bring everything with you...
Anyway he said he liked the Beddy better because it was more reliable and didn't get stuck as much. I said yeah but the Opels were faster yes? and he laughed and said how fast do you need to drive to follow a tank?

Drat, I forgot to ask about the RPMs, sorry. Next time.
He did say that the Afrikan Tigers had fewer breakdowns than the Russian Tigers. I would guess it was due to the cold weather.
The Tiger transmission was designed for a vehicle that was 20 tons lighter, but with a good driver they didn't have too many problems. The biggest difficulty was if the driver was a bit rough with the clutch it could tear up teeth in the final drive. It could also loosen the track tensioner which could cause the thing to throw a track.
An outer roadwheel under ideal circumstance took about 15-20 minutes to remove. An inner road wheel required breaking the track and removing 2 outer wheels to get to it, so again under ideal conditions, it took about an hour or so to get off. Usually more like 2 to 3 hours or even longer in the field. Then you gotta put it all back together after you have fixed whatever was wrong.......


When I asked him about the tracks he told me another story. He said that since there were no bearings or bushings between the tracks and the track pins that they constantly squeeked and sand got in and worn them out in fairly short order. He said the squeeking drove them crazy. Somewhere or other they got (found or stole) 5 gallons of egyptian butter, too rancid to eat, so they actually used it to lubricate their tracks!
He said it picked up sand like crazy but it stopped the squeek for a while. I get a mental picture of a crewman pouring butter all over the tracks. Imagine the smell....

He originally wanted to be a fighter pilot and took his original flight training in gliders at the Wasserkuppe. As I understand it he got into fighter training shortly after. I believe he said Hans Joachim Marsielle was a classmate. (not sure about that exactly although he said he was friends with Marsielle and went to visit while they were both in Afrika.)
Anyway, near the end of his flight schooling, his company was called for a parade. While they were all standing at attention an SS officer walked in and told them he wanted volunteers for Armour training. Not one man stepped forward. Who wants to be a tanker when you can fly? This greatly annoyed the SS man who said; (I quote Herr Lindemann), "Alright you bastards, I'll get you for this!" Two weeks later his entire class was drafted into armour training. Lindemann said "We all hated those goosestepping SS azzholes, the best thing you could do was stay the hell out of their way."


SA(Situational Awareness) was always a problem. When I asked whether they went into combat open or buttoned up, he said they alway had the hatches closed if they thought there would be any shooting. The commander could use binoculars in the (early drum type) cupola while closed down. The vision blocks were replaceable and there were spares located in the turret. They spent a fair amount of time and effort to make sure these were as clean and clear as they could be.
To prepare for combat the next day Maj. Lindemann would go out with his sergeant as close to the front as they could get. The German artillery would spend some time firing in the direction of the enemy and they would take careful note of the locations and sizes of any return fire and mark them on their maps. Each unit had specific movement instructions and with the enemy positions marked on their maps they knew where to keep their eyes. Each tank would scan in a different direction so that they stayed aware of their surroundings.

To be continued...
Dowly is offline  

Reply With Quote
Old 01-29-09, 07:21 PM   #2
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Finland
Posts: 25,004
Downloads: 32
Uploads: 0


Default

Major Lindemann himself. I told him to smile and say 'Matilda'!


Oh, whoever asked me if they worried about sappers, yes they did, at least the designers did, which is why they had pistol ports on the back of the turret as well as the 'S-Mine' launchers. Not the smoke candles, but an anti-personnel device which threw a fragmentation round out about 25 feet for an airburst. Lindemann sasid they had little use for those or the smoke candles and mostly dismounted them or never reloaded them.

Tex0 asked about overheating at 2600 rpm and over, Lindemann said they NEVER had overheating problems, even in the desert. The only overheating problems they had was when the would heat their food containers on the engine, something would come up and they would forget about them until it exploded. He says there is nothing like cleaning beans out of a Tigers engine compartment to make you remember next time..

Silencez, I asked about the periscope mounting in the drum cupola and he said that while the mounting was there, they never used them and he did not even carry the gadget.

Turret rotation in the high speed setting at max engine RPMs was about 60 seconds for a 360 degree turn. Turret motor noise was not something he paid a lot of attention to but it wasn't too loud, at least compared with all the other noise going on while the tank was in operation. While traveling the gun was locked to the turret roof, and the turret was locked with a pin so that it wouldn't rotate. This was done so that the optics wouldn't be jarred out of alignment whil traveling. It could occaisonally lead to some problems if the gunner forgot to unlock the turret before action. Later tanks had an external travel lock in addition. Some locks were mounted on the front of the tank and sometimes they were mounted on the back deck of the tank. Crews prefered the front lock since they could unlock the gun without climbing out of tank..

When I asked about how it felt to get hit, he said go find a two inch steel plate and stick your head up against it while your friend beats on it from the other side with a sledge hammer as hard as he can. That is not quite the same but close... He also said they NEVER went into combat with anything open. They tried to keep the tank closed whenever they were moving just to keep the dust out if nothing else.
He told a story about capturing a Sherman and putting some of his guys in it while they hit it with a 20mm flak vierling. (Tankers are crazy in any era) He said the hulls rang like a church bell when they were hit. When I asked about main guns being knocked out by enemy fire he looked me like I was nuts and said that he had never heard of it happening although he said he supposed it must have been possible... just an incredibly lucky hit.

He ended his time in the Afrika Korps at Cape Bon. When he was ordered to surrender the crew disabled the tank by pouing sand in the fuel tanks and running the engine until it locked up. Then they hammered some rocks in the end of the barrel, loaded up an HE round and fired the gun remotely. He said it looked like a cigar that someone had chewed the end off of. While they were destrying their Tiger, the British artillery was firing into the olive grove where they were and gave him a serious wound in the leg from shrapnel (He walks with a cane these days), The crew was picked up by some 8th Army Brits with a universal carrier and taken to the closest aid station where the were told that the station was full and he would have to be taken elsewhere. When he woke up, he was in the civilian hospital in Constantine (?) The Brits were good guys he said, the Eighth Army were real profesionals and no one harboured grudges.

Since Tigers were a very new machine noone had developed specific tactics to use them at first and they tended to be thrown in piecemeal as they became available in support of other units, especially in Russia. Since they had been kept very secret, their arrival in combat came as a nasty shock but their small numbers and poor deployment caused them to be considerably less of a threat than they might have been.
The first units to recieve Tiger (sPzAbt 501, 502 and 503)were largely left to develope their own tactics based on experience with earlier, lighter panzers. This was naturally a high priority and regular combat reports were required of all commanders.
Four different formations were used in a Tiger platoon.
Linie: (Line abreast), with the Zugfuhrer (platoon leader) at the far right and the Section Leader two vehicles away to his left, was used primarily for assembly of the platoon.
Riehe: (Row), with the Platoon leader at the head of the line and the Section Leader in the third vehicle was used for both assembly and march. For assembly a spacing of 10m was mandated and for march 25m spacing was used.
Doppelriehe: (Double row), which for a platoon was actually a box formation, was used for approaches, when going cross country and in the attack, with the Platoon Leader at the head of the right hand row and the Section Leader at the head of the left hand row. In combat the rows were to be 150m apart and the lines 100m.
Keil: (Wedge), was the most often used attack formationwith the Platoon and Section leaders abreast and 100m apart. The second tank in each section was 100m back and to the outside of their respective leaders the same distance. Leaders turrets faced forward while the seconds would turn to 45deg outward in order to scan the largest area possible. Each vehicle in a four unit wedge was responsible for covering their quarter of the horizon. When the unit actually engaged an enemy the Platoon leader would move to the middle of the wedge and the Section Leader would take lead. This allowed the Platoon Leader to control his platoon most efficiently and use the terrain to his best advantage. I imagine it would also give the Platoon Leader a higher survivability as well, which would allow him to continue to command his unit.
Obviously the Double row and Wedge formations would be very difficult to maintain for long while actually in combat. Something Maj. Lindemann mentioned that I hadn't thought of. Tigers were forbidden to use paved roads. The weight of the tank and the steel cleats on the track would tear the hell out of any road they might drive down. Softskins used the road. Panzers used the shoulder.
If you look at the early Sherman track you will notice that the track is rubber shod just so they COULD use the roads without destroying them. A side note, I was asking about kill markings on the tank, and he said that they were all armour kills, tanks and armoured cars that is. Softskin trucks and things like that didn't count because they couldn't shoot back and you could just run over them anyway.

Hassel asked about bailing;
Maj Lindemann said that he personally had never had to bail from any of the tanks that he was in although they constantly practiced getting out of the panzer.
He did mention a Pz4 that a friend of his had command of, getting hit by a Sherman. The hit was on the side of the turret and penetrated through the turret side hatch, clipped off the commanders hand, killed the loader and exited through the other side hatch without exploding. (dud?) The crew started to bail, but with the tank still pretty much operational, the commander ordered them to stay with the tank and it was back in service 2 days later. I would have thought that it would have hit the gun breech but it evidently missed everything inside except the crew.

Saerdna asked about air attacks;
According to the Major, when vehicles were traveling in convoy you were required to maintain 100 meter intervals. Softskins travelled on the road while the panzers rode the shoulder. If they were attacked by A/C, the panzers would button up and keep moving and the trucks and other vehicles would stop, everyone would jump out and hit the ditches or whatever other cover they could find alongside the road.
A bomb near your tank could ruin your whole day even if it didn't crack the armour. Concussion effects could kill almost as easily as a large hunk of metal flying through the air. He said that the closest he personally got to a bomb was when someone dropped what he thought was a thousand pounder about 25 meters from his Tiger. It didn't do much to the tank but the crew were all bleeding from the ears and more than a little stunned. He said much closer and he probably wouldn't be here.
He mentioned one Tiger losing a track to a 40mm round from a Hurricane fighter-bomber. The driver gunned the tank, which spun it in a circle and just kept it spinning until the Hurri went away, he said it was funny as hell to see. They asked the driver later if he was trying to make his own smoke screen!

TO BE CONTINUED...
Dowly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-30-09, 12:38 AM   #3
clayton
Samurai Navy
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: At your mom's house...
Posts: 567
Downloads: 179
Uploads: 0
Default

Outstanding... More, please...
__________________
Active member of the 'Church of SH4'
clayton is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-30-09, 04:28 AM   #4
Chucky
Planesman
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 185
Downloads: 90
Uploads: 0
Default

Superb.I look forward to the next instalment
Chucky is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-30-09, 09:07 AM   #5
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Finland
Posts: 25,004
Downloads: 32
Uploads: 0


Default

I'll post more shortly.
Dowly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-30-09, 09:23 AM   #6
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Finland
Posts: 25,004
Downloads: 32
Uploads: 0


Default

The Major stopped in today for an update on his Tiger and after showing him the latest pics, I showed him a couple of books that had some photos that I thought he might be interested in. While thumbing through the Concord Panzers in North Africa, he stopped me and said turn the page back, that's me!


Oh Strukt, he said the Stuart had a wrecked motor from a Pak hit. While it didn't burn, the crew bailed and got back to their unit. They drained the fuel out of it, took whatever goodies they could find and left it.
He did say that they were very fond of the British Desert boots because they had crepe soles and kept the heat away from your feet much better than those hi top canvas boots the DAK got issued. He also said that you were better off in sandals than to wear the normal jackboots because they had iron hobs in the soles for traction and the metal conducted heat into the boot to bake your feet.
Whenever possible, they wore shorts, or even stripped down to skivvies in the heat. It did (does) get pretty cold in the desert at night too, which made for quite a mish-mash of uniforms. I guess a lot of guys wore Italian gear too because they had the most comfortable tropical uniforms.


Stankyus asked about ammo load outs;
Lindemann says that they carried 90 rounds of 88mm ammo, usually 30 AP. 30HE, and 30 dual purpose rounds, unfortunately he couldn't remember the actual designations for the round. He also said that since they had ammo trucks following them around that they would trade rounds to get the load out that they thought they would need for any prospective engagement, so, theoretically they could have all AP or HE or whatever mix they wanted. They also carried 40,000 rounds of MG ammo and 4 mp-38 or mp-40 with 8 clips per smg. He personally carried a Walther P-08 with 4 clips and the other crew were allowed to carry handguns if they wanted to.

Schuster and Rdiggety asked what he thought about Allied armour;
Stuarts and armoured cars were used as scouts and the Tiger guys didn't worry much about them except as they might call in support. The 75mm tanks (Grants Shermans etc.) were not anything to worry about either per se. You just had to be careful around them and never let them get position on you. Usually this was not a problem because you always had infantry nearby and artillery to back you up, so as long as you didn't get too far out on your own you were pretty safe. He had a healty respect for the Brit ATGs but not so much for their armour. He said their tankers had a lot of guts and pretty good tactics (mostly) but you could punch a hole in anything they had pretty easily. This meant that they would never engage you frontally if they could possibly avoid it, but would try to distract you while they slipped around on your flanks.
The LRDG were the guys that annoyed them most because they were always sneaking around trying to destroy the Afrika Korps supply dumps, and they NEVER had enough of anything to spare as it was. If a panzer was going to be shipped back for repairs, crews would strip it of any spare parts they thought would be useful.


His last crew (member changed from time to time) were all oberfeldwebels, they tended to get the more experienced crews to serve on the Tigers.
He said that every one of them had Iron Cross first or second class. They all wore the A.K. sleeve ribbons (3 months service in theatre) as well as Panzer badges.

Since I have been working on the figures lately, I spent some time asking about uniforms and what crews might be expected to wear. I had read something to the effect that crews were forbidden to wear shorts or remove their shirts for too long. Obviously the idea was to prevent troops from getting too sunburned to be useful. In fact it quickly became a courts martial offense since you were actually damaging wehrmacht property....
It turns out that this rule only applied to infantry. Panzer crews were allowed to wear shorts and shirtsleeves since the inside of a steel box with a twelve cylinder engine running in the back and a desert sun blazing down at you, is not exactly the coolest of environments...
Ever see that photo series on the guy frying an egg on the hull of his tank?


Something else he mentioned while we were talking about 'damaging Reich property'. The desert was (is) a hard place to live without proper equipment and guys got sicknesses that were untreatable with the early medical set ups that the Germans used in the early parts of the Afrikan campaign. The normal routine would be to fly patients back to German hospitals, sometimes all the way back to Germany.
Jaundice was one of these conditions, and some bright lad found out that if you left a tin of sardines out in the sun all day, you could punch holes in the tin and suck out the hot olive oil which would give all the signs of a jaundice attack. You would then be sent back to Germany for a nice refreshing leave until your 'Jaundice' cured itself. Naturally, the higher ups figured this little game pretty quickly and if you got caught it was considered a courts martial offense. Pretty slick trick for the first couple of guys though....

German prisoners held in Michigan had a fair amount of freedom and were often assigned to work details on farms surrounding the camp. The soldiers who were meant to guard them were usually pretty green and pretty young. When they left camp they were given their lunch in a paper bag, sandwiches and what not usually, and the farms were supposed to supply them with water.
Guard duty was dull and with not a lot else to do and one day both their guards fell asleep over the lunch break. POWs being what they are Lindemann and his comrades decided that here was an opportunity that couldn't be missed and they immediatley stole the guards rifles, disassembled them and hid the various parts in their pockets and nearby trees. Then they all sat back down and one of them bounced pebbles off one of the guards helmet until he woke up. The poor guy immediately noticed he was missing his rifle and woke up his buddy now also weaponless. The two guards knew they were in deep trouble and pleaded with the POWs for their weapons back. Lindemann said "Well, we can probably make a deal here, there is a little store about a mile down the road, go get us a case of beer and four cartons of ciggarettes....." Not having much choice the kid trudged off down the road. When he finally got back, the prisoners handed back the weapons in exchange for the beer and smokes. Except, they didn't give back the ammunition. When the guards objected, Lindemann and the rest of the prisoners grinned at them, Lindemann pointed at the guard who had stayed behind the first time and said "OK your turn to go to the store..."


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's enough for now, just woke up so, need to get me a cup of coffee and something to eat. The next bit will be a big one, the OP went into one of Lindemann's lectures and quite a few stories came out of it.
Dowly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-09, 11:24 AM   #7
602Sqn_Puff
Ensign
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland
Posts: 233
Downloads: 322
Uploads: 0
Default

Would it be possible to try and find out the reload time for the rounds in a Tiger..we have had quite a debate on the Tiger v T34 forums about this one and no-one can give a good answer.
602Sqn_Puff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-04-09, 04:52 AM   #8
ReM
Commodore
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Brewsky, Galore
Posts: 618
Downloads: 19
Uploads: 0
Default

Very nice read, thx Dowly.
__________________
Daddy cool
ReM is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-21-09, 10:53 PM   #9
Maarek Stele
Bilge Rat
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 1
Downloads: 0
Uploads: 0
Default

A superb thread, with terrific information and insights straight from one intimately in the know Learnt quite a bit here that one wouldn't normally find in typical reference books...


Quote:
Originally Posted by 602Sqn_Puff View Post
Would it be possible to try and find out the reload time for the rounds in a Tiger..we have had quite a debate on the Tiger v T34 forums about this one and no-one can give a good answer.
The rate of fire of the KwK 36 should be quite close to that of its FlaK sibling, or around 15-20 rounds per minute. The relatively high rate of fire is due to the fact that the 88 uses a semi-automatic sliding breechblock. Hence, the loader just needs to ram the round into the chamber and the rim of the brass case would engage the extractor, which in turn releases the breechblock that then slides shut into battery - all in one smooth motion. On firing, the recoil releases a catch which drops the breechblock automatically, which in turn engages the extractor and yanks out the empty case as the gun slides back into battery. You can see this in action on various videos of 88s in action, but here are some good ones:





Notice that the empty case is clear of the breech and the gun is hence clear to receive a fresh round even before the gun is back in battery; the gun can thus fire pretty much as fast as the loader can feed it.

It would appear that there are two main differences with regards to the Tiger's KwK 36 as opposed to the FlaK. First is that the loader is working in the confines of the turret; he has to pull a round from the rack then load it in, and this of course adds to the reload time unless he stands with another round already in his hands while the gun is loaded. The other potential factor that may affect reload time (if only slightly) is the fact that on the KwK, the loader stands on the right of the breech rather than on the left as in the case of the FlaK. Hence, the loader would be using his left hand to ram the rounds into the breech. Good training and practice may well offset that, though, but there it is.

Furthermore, most if not all the ammunition for the main gun is stored in the hull sides of the Tiger; as such, the rounds on one side would run out if the turret is not rotated throughout the combat engagement, and so after a while the rate of fire might be expected to drop slightly as rounds from the other side of the hull have to be passed across the turrent to the loader. However, this is perhaps not really worth modelling in all but the most hardcore of tank sims.

Other than those differences, the Tiger's KwK should have a rate of fire very similar to that of the FlaK, rather than the slightly anaemic one many sims (including T-34 v Tiger) use - probably as a result of assuming that the KwK 36 uses a manual breech like many other guns. :P
Maarek Stele is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-09, 11:50 AM   #10
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Finland
Posts: 25,004
Downloads: 32
Uploads: 0


Default

Wandered to the thread over at WWIIOL's forums and there's few updates that I missed earlier.

Klesh; Basically he said that his flying class was simply packed up wholesale and sent to the Armour school. (I forgot to ask where, but I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread...)
As an officer his training was a bit accelerated over the regular crews, so while he started out driving he was quickly trained in other positions until it was felt that he was qualified as a commander.
So he was (as an officer) already chosen to be a panzer commander.
Assignments were made as and when crews were needed.
When he arrived in Nord Afrika, Lindemann was already a Hauptmann.
(family might have helped in promotions)
Steady success lead to steady promotion letting him finish the war as a Major.
His last promotion was just after Kasserine.
As far as favorite targets...
He said that they liked to see softskins since they were both an easy target and (if they could be taken without too much damage) a source of supplies (fuel, food and water).

He said that the Grant/Lees were nasty to face because of that 75mm gun but that they were too tall to hide effectively, so they were easy to spot.
Shermans came as a nasty surprise and if you were in a Pz IV or III you had to do your best to get a flanking shot on them.
When the Americans showed up, thier equipment was still painted OD green and they were easy to see.
The Americans were as green as their armour too. He said that there was one encounter (Kasserine?) where he had 3 or 4 Shermans simply charge the German position across an open plain.
They were kicking up so much dust that they couldn't even see each other and the Tigers had no problems picking them off before they knew what was happening.
Unfortunately he couldn't remember what he killed the most of (Softskins didn't count as kills) but early on it was the Brits, so Valentines, Crusaders, Stuarts and Matildas would have been on the list. When the Americans came in it was Shermans and Stuarts...
Stuarts were the hardest to hit btw, IF they were moving...

BlackDragon;
Lindemann said that he was first assigned to the Pz III, moved to the PzIV and was picked for the Tiger because of his experience and the skill of his crew.
Senior crews were allowed first pick of new vehicles.
Wherever possible commanders were allowed to pick their own crews although if you had casualties you got whoever was available as a replacement.
He never saw the Royal Tiger until after the war but he thought that they were impressive, if only Germany hadn't been so low on fuel at the end...

Volcol;
Only the 11th Hussars operated DACs in North Africa. Lindemann said that you saw them once in a while but usually at a distance and he never fired at one.
Earlier in the thread, someone asked about the effectiveness of the 2lber gun and Lindemann said that the 'little popguns' didn't worry Tiger crews too much.
2lber crews would shoot at your tracks though since they knew that that was about the only way to stop a Tiger (flanking shots are hard to get with a ATG), I assume that the DAC crews were more worried about gathering intel than trying to take on a Tiger...
Dowly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-09, 11:53 AM   #11
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Finland
Posts: 25,004
Downloads: 32
Uploads: 0


Default

Lindemann basically said that HE never actually shot anybody with a hand weapon.
He said however, that before crews moved out on an attack that he and a few of his commanders would go out before dawn and scout terrain and enemy defenses. Occasionally they would run foul of pickets. Scouting Tobruk got him shot at a couple of times but they had a couple of troopers along to cover the officers.
Crew weapons on a Tiger.
Lindemann said he carried a P-38 and crews could pretty much use whatever they could get their hands on but the Tank came equipped with an MP-38 clipped inside the turret and both the hull and turret MGs were easily removable.

As far as the 'Green Tiger' goes, Lindemann said that although his crews were authorized to camouflage their Tigers with dark grey patterns over their factory Afrika Braun paint, none of his guys bothered. So he says he never saw a 'Green Tiger'. The Bovington Tiger wears a Light Olive Green mottle pattern over Afrika Braun. That being said, after Kasserine, the DAK captured quantities of American stores including Olive Drab paint.
Rommel did not waste supplies and there are suggestions that some of the 501st Tigers were repainted using Olive Drab while in repair depots.


That is all, the last post from the guy is dated back to early 2009. Ow he also mentioned that he had built an Uboat model to an Uboat Kapitan who lives around there. Also, he has heard that there lives another Tiger commander somewhere in the area, he was an SS and served in the Eastern Front.

The End.
Dowly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-09, 04:33 PM   #12
ArmorEtr
Watch
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: South Carolina, USA
Posts: 28
Downloads: 1
Uploads: 0
Default

Thanks for bumping/updating this thread, I missed it. It was a great read, thanks again for posting it.
ArmorEtr is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:04 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 1995- 2024 Subsim®
"Subsim" is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.